living survivance through art
squeezing my eyes tight salty tears
releasing a deep breath swallow praying
mahti wîcihin kisê-manitow please help me
deep breath
tears slowing
cheeks drying
I see her before me mama bear in her various forms
loving struggling praying
dandelion and rose
water and blood
moon and ancestors
sweet musty earth
the land the medicines showing up to help
I will bring this medicine to life
(trauma) wisdom
living survivance
Art is my medicine. More accurately, it is our medicine. Because we are inseparable.
Art has always been medicine for human beings. Cultures across the world acknowledge medicines, powers, and gifts within various images and art forms.
It has been this way for my ancestors and it is this way for me.
I am not a trained artist.
Art is my teacher.
Art shows me the wisdom that flows through me – through us – especially during times of difficulty. I am a being-in-relation, connected to my family, my communities, the natural world, the spirit world, everything with/in/between/around the universe, and past and future generations.
Art reminds me of the gifts of creation and the interconnected webs of relationships that sustain and support us in the most joyous and most painful times, and all times in between.
When I bring brush to canvas, beads to thread, whatever the materials, the art that emerges comes through those webs of relationships. The images or items I am called to create are shown to me. Sometimes these creations come when I am asking for help, sometimes in a moment of quietude, sometimes in a dream, sometimes in the thick of great challenge or gratitude. Always these creations are medicine.
This medicine, this art, is living survivance.
Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor refers to survivance as “an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry” (Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, 1999, p. vii).
Collectively, iyiniw (Indigenous) people’s artwork is survivance. Our art embodies the wisdom that emerges through countless generations of living and thriving with the land, surviving 500 years of attempted genocide, ongoing resistance to violence and oppression, and traditional and contemporary iyiniw ways of knowing, being, and doing. Our art continues to tell our stories and embodies the medicines of our peoples, past present future.
Personally, my artwork embodies the interconnected survivance of myself and all my relations. As a nehiyaw/Métis artist, I see the imagery and handiwork of my matriarchal line in my creations. My great-grandmother’s fingers were the last in my family to do traditional beadwork, and its (re)emergence in my beadwork and pointillism is collective and intergenerational survivance. The cultural stories and teachings that show up in my creations, the plant medicines my mom and nana shared with me, are collective and intergenerational survivance. Not only for myself, my family, and my ancestors and descendants, but for others whose stories, teachings, and artforms interconnect in this web of relations.
Personally, my artwork is also my survivance through the challenges I face. The majority of my pieces have come to me during difficult and painful times. mukundwe ᒪᐢᑿ ᑳᐃᓯᐱᒫᒋᐦᐅᐟ maskwa kâ-isi-pimâcihot the bear's way of life post(partum) survivance, the acrylic painting that emerged through the opening story of this article, is just one example. Inevitably when a piece comes to me in this way, the medicine roots of my survivance and healing show up in the process and product. This medicine then echoes and is felt through the web of interconnected relations when the creation and its stories are shared.
art
living survivance
(trauma) wisdom
mama bear reminds me
you are not alone we are never alone
you are not without we are blessed with abundance
and with these medicines
with kahkiyaw niwâhkômâkanitik
all my relations
the story continues
